sadamhussein

got the dirty t-shirt too. R4000 vodacom bill for a few visits to an undisclosed website whilst in Botswana. i think i got about 5 years older the second i opened the bill.

it's not about winning, it's about barreling down a mountain as fast as you can. why do lycra's always think it's about winning?

wear lycra at your own peril

9th &10th June 2012 http://www.mankele.co.za/events_avalanche.php

to all those who got worked up over nothing, take one of these and dont call me in the morning or better yet, take one of these

fixed

totally! it seems this forum is over populated by self righteous "dirt-roadies" who shoot down any opinion other than their own.

yup, i definitely struck a nerve. why is this such a holy topic?

again, here i go pissing off the masses who cannot think for themselves, and just do as their peers do.

that's my point, he didn't get that big on energade. an unfair advantage can be gained over someone who isnt using them by using either banned or legal supplements. you just need to be taking more than the other guy is, so where does one draw the line? banned substances generally are banned because they are bad for you, but just because a substance isn't banned, it still may constitute an unfair means of achieving a desired result with which to get ahead in competition. on it's own, the word "supplement" implies that it is something you wouldn't ingest under normal circumstances.

no i don't use it. would i even start a thread like this if i did?

Cheating refers to an immoral way of achieving a goal. It is generally used for the breaking of rules to gain advantage in a competitive situation. so how is it not cheating if you buy those huge tubs of supplements, meal replacements shakes, protien supplements etc. and proceed to pump the contents thereof into your body on an ongoing basis? any muscle mass, endurance, energy, and so on that you gain by unfair means, meaning in a way other than a normal eating regime, should be constituted as doping. does this look normal?! could you build muscles like this without taking supplements? NO? then it's cheating. same goes for cycling. this kind of thing was unheard of 30 years ago. now, before you go on about "ja, but if you dont take supplements you cant compete with the guys who do", just remember, two wrongs dont make a right. I knew a guy who went into renal failure because he took too much protein, besides, how do you live with yourself knowing that you got in shape by "unfair means" way?

no, but is 100miles long, AS THE NAME IMPLIES.

so you are saying that for the New York marathon there is a very real chance that it doesn't actually take place in New York? smartass, if the name implies a geographical location, then common sense suggests that it takes place there.

i agree with the OP. why is it so hard to see that you cannot make an ignorant blanket-statement , saying that SA is the hawai of mtb, based on the fact that we have one or two big annual stage races? there's more to mtb than stage racing, and as an all-round mtb destination we are OK, but there are places that cater for it much better than SA.

is this section not called rant & rave? excuse me for speaking my mind...

my aim with this is to force people to think beyond what they are force fed, to question the norm - what is wrong with that? when i first heard of this race many years ago i thought - "cool, a race that goes up/down sani pass! this should be awesome" - having cycled up and down sani pass i was pretty excited at the idea of it being part of a race, but the name was misleading, so right there and then a false perception was created by the people organising it. clearly this post has ruffled some feathers as people get pretty emotional about their precious race names. to them i say, get over it! to question the name of a race is not an insult on your personality, unless you are so insecure that you see the fact that you participated in a race as an extension of who you are.

thanks for proving my point. this is why i will be cashing in on using the name of Mt Kilimanjaro for a race that will be taking place in gauteng. It will be called the "killi to cairo", and even though it doesn't actually follow the exact route as the name suggests, it represents the hardships and triumphs one can expect from such a route. the trend of naming a race "the this to that" is actually not very original and lacks imagination. names like the cape epic, tour de tuli, or trans baviaans are way more descriptive without sounding like every other "this to that" race name.

your answer is at 20 seconds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iogcq6v5ulI

so how many bikes were stolen and how many have been recovered???

i have met a lot of guys who, when exposed to something a bit more twisty and downhilly, you can't wipe the smile off their faces. it's like that kind of riding NEVER actually occurred to them! they would normally ride breedts nek, yet enjoy the twisty single track of van gaalen WAY more! but they are reluctant to venture outside of their peer pressure induced comfort-zone, and then very soon thereafter return to riding what they think their peers expect of them (from what they see on TV)....and so it's back to breedts. it's like they dont see themselves as real mountainbikers if they dont regularly ride a 70km stretch of straight farm road.

people are scared of the unknown. to get something like this going you need people to participate so you can market it. the problem is people only see xc stage races on tv, so they are sceptical of doing an AM type vent. it's a chicken and egg scenario - without lots of participants you cant market it, and without marketing you cant get participants. why cant we see type events here?go down sani pass, or somewhere near sabie (i recently discovered a 12km "never ending" downhill there) but still, even if we did have events like these, how do we get Momentum and Absa and supersport to get involved???

true, there is nothing wrong with that. so why then does the LBS sell him a xc machine instead of an AM bike? his fate is decided for him by the bike shop who has xc racers working there when they arent training or racing.

there's nothing "extreme" about all mountain riding. it's about how the rest of the mountainbiking world views itself, to them XC seems extreme - it's a fringe activity practiced by a minority of riders around the world, for personal glory. it just so happens that in SA, the majority of riders are into XC because they have never been exposed to anything else. there is a competitive urge whereby you have to continually outdo your fellow riders by having a lighter bike, faster average, longer bar ends etc. i have been on many rides with many people, and to me, when i go ride in a forest it's about being in nature, getting fresh air, taking in the scenery. i take my time to the top, and have my fun on the way down. but most importantly it's about doing this with my friends, so when one (new) member in the the group keeps racing out ahead on the uphills like it's a race, and in doing so starts making everyone in the group feel like they have to keep up for the sake of being sociable, my blood starts to boil. this scenario has a tendency to keep repeating itself. one or two guys race ahead, and in doing so splits up the group. then everyone else tries to catch up and it's no longer a social ride, it's a race.

R50